Participatory Democracy Beyond Ballots: The Eritrean Path of Civic Agency and Collective Practice

By David Yeh

Democracy is too often imagined in a narrow frame: as an election cycle, a procession of ballots cast every few years, and the competition of political parties under externally prescribed rules. Yet true democratic practice, the kind that shapes people’s lives emerges not from imported templates but from lived experience, grassroots engagement, and collective responsibility. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Eritrean experience, where the struggle for self‑determination and the practical realities of community life have co‑produced a distinctive form of participatory democracy firmly rooted in social solidarity, local agency, and sustained engagement beyond episodic national contests.

Long before the first national vote that marked Eritrea’s independence, ordinary Eritreans were already shaping civic life through collective action. Under Italian and then British rule, native Eritreans were excluded from decision‑making. During the federation with Ethiopia in the 1950s, indirect forms of representative structures allowed some community leaders limited voice, but the promise of autonomy was eclipsed by annexation and decades of disenfranchisement. It was in this context of imposed governance and exclusion that participatory practice began to take a distinctly Eritrean shape not as a set of procedures dictated by distant powers, but as a lived process of community organization and mutual support.

During the long liberation struggle, collective agency became the bedrock of political education. Networks of villagers provided shelter and sustenance to fighters; neighbors shared grain and water; training in community assemblies and People’s Assemblies (baito) taught people to articulate local needs, mediate disputes, and coordinate communal efforts. This baito structure, emerging from traditional village forums, was not lip service to participation but a real platform where farmers, pastoralists, women, and elders voiced needs, negotiated solutions, and conveyed local concerns to higher authorities during the struggle. In pastoral communities, information systems and community gatherings served as channels for collective decision making, in which leaders emerged through respect, service, and accountability to their communities.

When the people of Eritrea cast their votes in the 1993 referendum observed by the United Nations, they affirmed a shared aspiration for freedom with overwhelming consensus, a rare moment of genuine mass participation and democratic expression reflective of years of collective struggle. Yet the narrative often offered in global indices neglects another truth: that in the years since independence, the foundational elements of participation have continued at local levels. Elections and selections of leadership have taken place throughout regional (zoba), subregional (n’us zoba), and village councils (mimhdar kebabi), where people exercise real influence over matters that affect their daily lives. Grassroots engagement through community councils, cooperative labor, local assemblies, women’s collectives, and youth organizations has shaped development activities ranging from water distribution to education support, agricultural planning to dispute mediation. These processes are not mere formalities; they are practical embodiments of citizens engaging in governance as an everyday act.

In the village of Emni Ankel, for instance, a community water committee organizes the maintenance of wells and irrigation channels. Women, who once had limited decision making power in public affairs, now convene weekly to monitor water distribution, resolve disputes, and train young girls in leadership roles, ensuring that governance is intergenerational and inclusive. In Keren, a youth council coordinates local educational programs, organizing tutoring for students in remote villages and mobilizing resources to renovate schools. These assemblies meet regularly, debate priorities, and implement solutions collectively, demonstrating a vibrant, practice based democracy that directly affects daily life.

Critics often focus on the absence of national presidential elections and use this as a benchmark to label Eritrea’s system as deficient. Yet this critique misunderstands the context in which Eritrea defines its governance priorities. The country has faced prolonged external threats and unresolved regional tensions since before independence, realities that have shaped its conception of national cohesion and stability. In such a context, postponing national elections has been viewed by many within Eritrea not as a denial of democratic aspirations but as a rational measure to preserve unity and avoid fracturing a still vulnerable society. It is a recognition that electoral competition under siege conditions can fragment rather than solidify collective agency.

To reduce democracy to scheduled national ballots alone is to ignore the manifold ways in which people participate. In Eritrean villages and towns, assemblies convene to discuss social, economic, and cultural issues; elders and local leaders mediate conflicts; women’s councils form platforms for empowerment, training representatives in leadership and management across regions; and youth and student unions born in earlier eras of resistance continue to engage in community causes. Informal associations pool resources for collective benefit, supporting education, health services, and infrastructure projects, thereby strengthening community resilience and participation in public life. In the lowlands of Barentu, a women’s cooperative recently launched a small-scale school library, selecting and managing resources collectively while mentoring younger children, a microcosm of participatory governance translating vision into tangible outcomes.

This vibrant web of civic engagement illustrates that democracy is not a static event to be marked on a calendar but a continuous process of negotiation, collective problem-solving, and mutual accountability. It is a process in which people do not merely vote and withdraw but regularly convene, deliberate, share responsibilities, and hold one another accountable through shared practices. The ability of local communities to organize around developmental priorities and to choose representatives at village and regional levels reflects a lived form of political agency that has direct impact on people’s lives and which often matters more to citizens than distant national contests.

At the same time, the Eritrean experience challenges externally imposed governance models that presume one universal pathway to democratic legitimacy. Many global prescriptions lean heavily on multi-party elections, external observers, and rigid timetables that fail to account for the historical, cultural, and security contexts of diverse societies. Eritreans have every right to define their own political processes in ways that reflect their history, aspirations, and practical realities rather than feeling pressured to adhere to imported templates judged from afar. The insistence on external criteria for legitimacy can lead to superficial compliance rather than genuine civic engagement.

Indeed, the foundations of democratic agency in Eritrea solidarity, collective action, local deliberation, and community self organization are deeply embedded in cultural practices of mutual support. Even as the nation confronts modern challenges, including demographic shifts, regional pressures, and diaspora dynamics, these practices remain vital. Eritreans have long understood that democracy is not a prize awarded through external endorsement, but a living practice sustained by everyday acts of cooperation, responsibility, and civic care.

Democracy beyond ballots means recognizing that participation is multidimensional. It includes shaping local priorities, voicing concerns, mediating social disputes, organizing collective efforts for well being, and nurturing inclusive spaces where voices are heard and respected. Eritrea’s model born from struggle, rooted in community engagement, and sustained through ongoing participation offers an important corrective to reductive measures of governance that privilege elections over lived realities.

In defending this model, we do not romanticize every aspect of the national experience nor dismiss the legitimate hopes for broader political expression. Rather, we affirm that democratic life blossoms where people have sustained agency: where they convene not only to vote but to deliberate; where they jointly shape solutions and share responsibilities; where leadership is grounded in accountability to community; and where participatory practice is woven into daily life. Such democracy is not an event marked by a calendar but a process continually nurtured by collective experience and in Eritrea’s story, this process has been present long before and beyond any singular electoral moment.

Ultimately, Eritrea’s experience offers a profound lesson for the world: democracy is not defined solely by periodic elections or external metrics, but by the extent to which citizens actively participate in shaping their communities, asserting agency, and sustaining accountability. It demonstrates that local engagement, collective problem solving, and the cultivation of civic responsibility are as critical to democratic life as national ballots. By valuing participation as a continuous process rather than an episodic event, the Eritrean path challenges conventional narratives and inspires a broader understanding of democracy as a lived, communal practice that can flourish even under extraordinary circumstances.